BULLETIN: Canada’s province of Quebec has issued a warning on an increasingly bizarre and evolving scheme once known as “GetEasy” and now known as “iGetMania,” calling it an “investment program” that has “not filed a prospectus” and is “not registered with the [Autorité des marchés financiers] in any capacity.”
AMF is Quebec’s securities regulator. The action appears to mark the first official warning about iGetMania in North America.
The PP Blog has observed an ad for iGetMania on craigslist in Rome.
At the same time, the Malta Financial Services Authority is spreading the word about the iGetMania warning from Luxembourg. (See MFSA warning dated Jan. 22 here.)
The Autorité des marchés financiers (“AMF”) is cautioning investors in Québec about an investment program connected to the Portuguese firm GetEasy Limited and the British firm iGetMania Limited. Their investment products are tied in particular to the leasing of global positioning equipment and are promoted via conferences, the web and social media.
Through membership programs, members of GetEasy and iGetMania can subscribe to packages (or “packs”) via the Internet. The investment helps finance the acquisition of global positioning equipment for leasing by the firm. Revenues are shared between investors and the firm, and investors are not required to handle any management matters. In turn, investors are urged to recruit two other members and thereby create two teams. New members are then encouraged to recruit two other members each, and so on. Revenue is distributed based on the activity generated by members of each team by way of bonuses, commissions and a point system. Members are lured by promises of hefty profits.
The AMF wishes to inform investors that GetEasy and iGetMania have not filed a prospectus and are not registered with the AMF in any capacity. Investors should therefore be very cautious with investment offers from these firms since they might incur losses for which remedies are highly restricted or non-existent.
The AMF is closely monitoring this matter and will take any measures deemed necessary in the event of violations under the laws it administers.
“GetEasy took off in the wake of the regulatory shut down of TelexFree.
“Seeking to scoop up disenfranchised investors who lost funds in the billion dollar Ponzi scheme, GetEasy successfully attracted a significant number of investors from Portugal, Spain and to a lesser extent, South America and greater Europe.”
BULLETIN: CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has issued a warning and suspended the trading of an HYIP “program” known as TureProfit that appears to be operating as both a macro- and a microscam while using the name of Bitcoin.
On its English website in a prompt dated Aug. 17, 2014, TureProfit purports it has “gained huge profit from BitCoin Futures market. As raward [sic], today we have added a special plan: 200% after 1 day . . . Min deposit: $500 . . . Max deposit: $500,000.”
In recent months, HYIP scammers have sought to trade on the name of Bitcoin to loosen purse strings. A number of regulators have issued warnings on scams that use a Bitcoin theme.
TureProfit, which appears to be a reincarnation of a Ponzi-board “program” that surfaced in 2011 and later collapsed, also says it gathers sums as low as $10. This and greater sums purportedly will earn “8% daily for 50 days,” with “compounding available.”
The time of the apparent resurrection may suggest scammers hoped to pick more pockets in advance of the Holiday season. Some “programs” may collect money for months and even make payments — but then suddenly go missing during the holidays. The phenomenon is known as “Back December.”
There is at least one report on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum that TureProfit was hacked in 2013. (Claimed hackings are part-and-parcel to the HYIP sphere.) By May 13, 2013, a Ponzi-board huckster noted, “looks as if this one is gone.”
But more than a year later — in August 2014 — TureProfit appears to have resurrected itself. Its website claims it is accepting Bitcoin, plus “Perfectmoney, EgoPay, Payeer . . . to ensure maximum safety of your funds. ”
Meanwhile, the “program” says, “Now we accept SolidTrustPay deposit. [T]his is good choice for US investors.”
Text on the TureProfit website bizarrely claims that when “[Liberty Reserve] failed, we had to shut down our program.”
In 2013, federal prosecutors in the United States described Liberty Reserve as a payment vessel that had helped HYIP scammers and other criminals launder $6 billion. A number of Liberty Reserve figures were charged criminally.
From the CONSOB warning (italics added):
Consob has suspended, as a precautionary measure and for a period of 90 days, the offering to the public resident in Italy of the investment programme named “Tureprofit” active via the website www.tureprofit.com (Resolution no. 19070 of 27 November 2014).
The offer is also intended for the public residing in Italy. Despite being prepared in English, the website where subscriptions are collected also features a function to automatically translate the content into Italian. It should also be noted that there is no specific disclaimer stating that the content refers only to residents of countries other than Italy.
The “Tureprofit” offer of financial products has the following characteristics: (a) for the purpose of subscription, a minimum payment of 10 US dollars is required; (b) in exchange for this payment, it promises a daily return, for 50 days, of 8 percent; (c) the client has no independent management. It would therefore appear to satisfy the characteristics of a financial investment, considering the simultaneous presence of: (i) an investment of capital; (ii) an expectation of a return of a financial nature; (iii) the assumption of a risk associated with the investment of capital.
However, in relation to the offer programme, there has been (a) no prior communication to Consob, and (b) no transmission of a prospectus intended for publication. Therefore, there is a well-grounded suspicion that this is an offer to the public of financial products carried out in breach of Art. 94, Section 1 of the Consolidated Law on Finance. As the offer is still underway, the Commission has adopted the precautionary measure of declaring a suspension in accordance with Art. 99, subsection 1, letter b) of said Decree.
(in “Consob Informa” no. 46/2014 – 1 December 2014)
Visit the CONSOB website. (As of today, Dec. 1, 2014, a brief on the TureProfit suspension action appears near the top of the CONSOB site, under the “Warnings” section.)
UPDATE: CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has finalized a March 27 suspension order against alleged Profitable Sunrise pitchman Daniele Verzari.
Verzari allegedly pitched Profitable Sunrise as the “founder” of the Vdproject Italy team on a Blog hosted by WordPress. After CONSOB announced a temporary suspension order on April 2, WordPress gave Verzari the boot. He also allegedly promoted schemes known as “Vityazi” and “Bestforinvest.”
On April 4, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a pyramid-scheme complaint against Profitable Sunrise in federal court in Atlanta. Records show that the SEC has issued subpoenas to several Profitable Sunrise pitchmen in the United States.
The murky scheme may have collected tens of millions of dollars by targeting U.S. investors, routing the proceeds of the scheme through offshore bank accounts and using a mail drop in England, the SEC said. Profitable Sunrise operated through an entity known as Inter Reef Limited.
Profitable Sunrise purportedly was operated by “Roman Novak.” It allegedly offered five HYIP plans, including one bizarrely dubbed the “Long Haul” that purported to pay 2.7 percent a day with the payout due April 1, the day after Easter. Profitable Sunrise went missing from the Web on or about March 14.
The actions by CONSOB and the SEC demonstrate that HYIP schemes can create trouble not only for purveyors such as “Novak,” but also for commission-based promoters.
Scammers have targeted Profitable Sunrise victims in multiple reload schemes.
WordPress has booted a Blogger named in an April 2 order by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
The Blog of Daniele Verzari now carries this message:
“vdprojectitaly.wordpress.com is no longer available.
“This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service . . .”
HYIP schemes spread in part through Blog pitches and pitches on social-media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. In 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said HYIP purveyors create “the illusion of social consensus, which is a common persuasion tactic fraudsters use to suggest that ‘everyone is investing in HYIPs, so they must be legitimate.’”
UPDATE 8:07 A.M. EDT (APRIL 4, U.S.A.)The report did not air during the 8 p.m. or 11 p.m. broadcasts, possibly because developments in other stories took precedence. Our April 3 story is below . . .
The Blog of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 is carrying this teaser today: “360 Wednesday[:] One of the biggest financial schemes in U.S. history went down in a small North Carolina town with many losing their life savings. Watch AC360 at 8 and 11 p.m. ET.”
In August 2012, the SEC called Zeek Rewards a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had defrauded people by the hundreds of thousands. Zeek was operated by Paul R. Burks and Rex Venture Group LLC of Lexington, N.C.
CNN’s apparent airing of a segment on Zeek will occur against the backdrop of mysterious disappearance of the Profitable Sunrise “program,” which purported to pay out more on a daily basis than even Zeek. Zeek planted the seed that it paid out an average of 1.5 percent a day; the bizarrely named Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan claimed it paid out 2.7 percent a day.
Some Zeek promoters also promoted ProfitableSunrise, which traded on Bible verse
Zeek also has promoters’ ties to the $119 million, 1-percent-a-day AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, which operated from the small town of Quincy, Fla., and purported to be a Christian enterprise. ASD collapsed after the U.S. Secret Service filed Ponzi allegations in 2008.
The website of “NewGNI” has not resolved to a server for days. The “program” is believed to have been a knockoff of a predecessor scam known as “GNI” or GoldNuggetInvest, which collapsed in early 2010 after being promoted by members of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.
The collapse of the original GNI was about as bizarre as they come in HYIP land. Critics were told to concentrate on earthquake relief in Haiti, rather than questioning the HYIP scheme. GNI’s collapse purportedly occurred after its operators sought “a crystal clear vision of our financial vortex.“
Among the pitchmen for both GNI and NewGNI was Ponzi-board legend “Ken Russo,” also known as “DRdave.” Earlier, “Ken Russo” had promoted the $119 million ASD scheme. He later turned to ClubAsteria, which was trading on the name of the World Bank to reel in suckers. ClubAsteria promos came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. “Ken Russo” also emerged as a pitchman for Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from North Carolina.
Among “Ken Russo’s” latest ventures is “Profitable Sunrise,” now the subject of a cease-and-desist order from North Carolina regulators.
Profitable Sunrise purportedly is operated by Roman Novak. The “program” is being targeted at people of faith, some of whom appear to be defending it by weaving impossible tales. Any number of Ponzi-board taunts have been aimed at the Securities Division of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, even as ProfitableSunrise advertises a risk-free, preposterous return of 2.7 percent a day in its bizarrely named “Long Haul” program with a purported Easter holiday payoff.
“lol @ NC officials,” says one post at MoneyMakerGroup. Another compares Marshall’s office to “Deputy Barney Fife,” an iconic TV character played by Don Knotts in the Andy Griffith Show.
Even after the government of Belize issued a warning against GNI in 2009, scammers continued to promote it — virtually to the very day it collapsed and took an unspecified sum with it. The collapse triggered a bizarre series of conspiracy theories.
GNI was operating concurrently with a now-collapsed scam bizarrely known as “Cash Tanker,” an “opportunity” aimed at Christians. Cash Tanker used an image of Jesus Christ in its promos and purported to pay 2 percent a day.
UPDATED 11:08 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) On a day Americans cherish as a great symbol of the continuation of Democracy, images of their President are being used to create the impression he has endorsed a “program” HYIP hucksters sought to popularize in the aftermath of the August 2012 collapse of the Zeek Rewards “program” amid SEC allegations that Zeek was just another massive Internet scam.
“Just join their team and you will receive all the help you need to grow your own business,” an animated Obama tells prospects in a video promoting Ultimate Power Profits. “By doing so, your earnings will increase. There is no hidden agenda. They showed me how their system worked and I was impressed. It is a fully legal and U.S.-patented system they use to make money.”
Obama’s image previously was used in affiliate promos for MPBToday, a purported MLM “grocery” program whose operator was arrested on a racketeering charge in Florida last month. A building that housed MPB Today’s operations is the subject of a federal forfeiture action in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The forfeiture case was filed July 31, 2012.
Less than three weeks later — on Aug. 17, 2012 — the SEC alleged Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi and pyramid scheme. Zeek and MPBToday are known to have promoters in common, including serial Ponzi scheme pitchman “Ken Russo,” also known as “DRdave.”
On Aug. 18, only a day after the SEC’s Zeek action late on Friday afternoon, the PPBlog began to receive spam about the UltimatePowerProfits “program.” (See Comments thread below this story. The Blog established a Ponzi-forum tie between Zeek and Ultimate Power Profits.)
On Aug. 20, the office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — which also had been investigating Zeek — issued a warning on “reload scams” in the wake of the SEC’s Zeek action.
Ultimate Power Profits is not the first “program” to make a claim about a “U.S. patent.” The JSS/JBP scam, which purported to pay an annualized return of 730 percent and purportedly was operated by former AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme pitchman Frederick Mann, also made a claim about a U.S. patent.
It is not uncommon for HYIP scams and MLM frauds to plant the seed that a “program” is endorsed by an agency of the U.S. government or a U.S. politician. ASD’s Andy Bowdoin was accused in 2008 of trading on the name of George W. Bush, then the President of the United States and Obama’s predecessor.
Images of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were used in the massive Mantria “green” Ponzi scheme in 2009.
In 2012, JSS/JBP came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. Some promoters, however, didn’t miss a beat. (Compare the images in the screen shots below. The first is from a promo for an emerging “program” known as RicanAdFunds; the second is from a promo for Zeek; the third is from a promo for JSS/JBP.)
There are Ponzi-forum reports today that “Wealth4AllTeam” has suspended operations. Wealth4AllTeam was a “program” pushed by legendary Ponzi-forum huckster “Ken Russo,” also known as “DRdave.”
“Ken Russo” regularly made “I Got Paid” posts for Zeek Rewards on the TalkGold Ponzi forum. He also led cheers for Club Asteria, a “program” that encountered trouble from CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. Meanwhile, Ken Russo led cheers for the bizarre JSS Tripler 2 “program,” which appears to have based its name on the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid scam-in-progress purportedly operated by Frederick Mann.
JSS/JBP appears now to be morphing into a scam known as “ProfitClicking.”
Among other things, the JSS Tripler 2 scam touted by “Ken Russo” hatched a companion fraud scheme known as “Compound150.”
A message today on the Wealth4All website accessible by clicking a link styled “Click Here for Other Forms of Payments” says “Temporally [sic] Down Please Check your e-mail.”
Separately, a message on the Ponzi boards attributed to “Wealth4allteam Management” in part says this (italics added):
As you are aware from previous communications, we have been working hard at getting our Project Genesis off the ground. The goal of Project Genesis is to create a business model that offers the right balance between a product and a rewarding financial opportunity. We’ve created an amazing model that will offer several income opportunities to a wide spectrum of people, from beginners to the more experienced network marketers.
In the past, we also informed you that we were consulting with both our legal team and with a compensation consulting firm to help us integrate our existing pay structure with the new model. During these consultations, it has become clear to us that the required changes to the current compensation plan are too drastic and complicated to be done effectively. Based on that, our counsel has advised us to create a completely new business model that will better serve everyone for our new business.
On Aug. 17, the SEC called Zeek a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. Just weeks earlier, “Ken Russo” left a series of “I Got Paid” posts for Zeek on the TalkGold Ponzi forum.
Included in his signature line was a link for the Wealth4AllTeam “program.”
Precisely what Wealth4AllTeam’s “Project Genesis” entails is unclear. The name, however, is reminiscent of an earlier scam known as the “Alpha Project” that was linked to another scam known as FEDI.
Read more on the FEDI scheme. FEDI operator Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, also known as “Michael Mixon,” pleaded guilty in September 2009 to fleecing investors out of millions of dollars and to financing terrorism.
The launch of “ProfitClicking,” the follow-up scam to the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid HYIP scheme (2 percent a day) purportedly operated by Frederick Mann, is under way.
Sort of.
Carl Pearson in his JSS/JBP days.
Just who’s running ProfitClicking is unclear, although the site has claimed that cash-gifting enthusiast J.J. Ulrich is the “PC Executive Director” and that Carl Pearson is on the “Management Team.” Pearson purportedly was the one-time COO of JSS/JBP, which experienced a promotional ban in Italy by the securities regulator CONSOB.
Mann hinted last month that he feared arrest in the United States. He previously speculated that the JSS/JBP site could be taken out by “cruise missiles.” Some JSS/JBP members complained that their support tickets hadn’t been addressed in weeks.
Rather than hold JSS/JBP responsibile, Mann suggested, it perhaps was best for members to read a self-improvement manual.
ProfitClicking’s site had featured a countdown clock for days, with the launch set to go live at 6 a.m. (EDT) today. Despite claims by ProfitClicking that new servers and a new engineering approach would make for a seamless experience, the site experienced an immediate meltdown — with the landing page defaulting to a “Block DOS” gateway.
The site did begin to load slowly within a few minutes, but members immediately complained on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum that they couldn’t log in. Members now are saying that they can log in but that the site is performing worse than dial-up.
Whether members’ data was transferred properly from the JSS/JBP site to the ProfitClicking site remains an open question. Like JSS/JBP, ProfitClicking makes members affirm they are not with the “government.” The site also seeks to disclaim any responsibility on the part of the “opportunity” or its affiliates for offering the “program.”
As JSS/JBP’s purported owner, Mann compared government workers to the Mafia. Regardless, he once permitted JSS/JBP’s conference-call host to hang up on a man who claimed to have been recruited by Mann and later to have suffered a stroke. Prior to being unceremoniously disconnected from the call, the man informed Mann that JSS/JBP support had ignored his pleas for help.
A woman who complained about support after claiming her sister’s home was at risk because of the JSS/JBP “program” was treated rudely during an earlier call — this after she pointed out she had a heart condition.
Among the apparent early aims of ProfitClicking is to permit members to fund accounts, but not withdraw. Such an approach is consistent with an effort to draft suckers into turning over money that may or may not be used at a later time to make Ponzi payments to people who bought into the JSS/JBP scam. AdSurfDaily, a ProfitClicking-like autosurf, scammed its members in this fashion in 2007, according to U.S. federal court files.
Mann was a former ASD pitchman, according to a 2008 promo.
ASD President Andy Bowdoin never told his new members that their money would be used to pay old members on board when the original iteration of ASD collapsed, federal prosecutors said. Bowdoin was sentenced last month to 78 months in federal prison.
All sorts of vacuous claims are made on the ProfitClicking site, including a claim that the purported opportunity is “Legally Compliant” and has a “Patented system.” Like JSS/JBP, ASD and the recently collapsed Zeek Rewards “program,” ProfitClicking has no known securities registrations and purports to do business with payment processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme.
Because ProfitClicking has a virtually unquantifiable number of HYIP scammers within its ranks owing to the fact it was formed from the carcass of JSS/JBP and was promoted widely on the Ponzi-forum cesspits, new members may be at grave risk. ProfitClicking’s original group of scammers has a vested interest in continuing the deception because attracting “new money” may be the only means of getting paid in the future.
For posterity, the screen shots below provide a snapshot of the countdown of a new scam in progress:
1.
The ProfitClicking countdown timer at the 1:00 mark today.
2.
The ProfitClicking countdown timer at the 0:01 mark today, one second before launch.
“It’s gonna blow up; it’s gonna be an ugly blow-up. It’ll probably happen sooner, not later. And it will leave a trail of devastation behind it. And I urge you to not even consider them.” — Comment on Zeek Rewards by Randy Schroeder, president of North America and Europe for Mona Vie, July 16, 2012
Randy Schroeder
UPDATED 7:10 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Randy Schroeder, the president of Mona Vie for North America and Europe, has done what few major figures in multilevel marketing have been willing to do: comment about the menace posed by the Zeek Rewards MLM program.
It was a most unexpected and welcome development, something that speaks well of both Schroeder and Mona Vie. But some Zeek apologists immediately (and predictably) accused Schroeder of meddling in North Carolina-based Zeek’s affairs and defaming the company, which suddenly announced on Memorial Day evening (May 28) that it was closing accounts at two U.S. banks and mysteriously claimed that affiliates had to cash or deposit checks drawn on the banks before June 1 or they would bounce.
Just 22 days earlier — on May 6 — Ponzi-forum huckster “DRdave,” also known as “Ken Russo,” claimed on the TalkGold Ponzi forum that he’d received $34,735 from Zeek since Nov. 14, 2011. The Zeek money, according to the post, was delivered largely if not wholly by AlertPay and SolidTrustPay. Both companies are offshore payment-processing firms linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme promoted online.
Hucksters such as “Ken Russo” and myriad others use “I Got Paid” posts on the Ponzi forums as a means of creating the appearance a scheme is legitimate. Included in “Ken Russo’s” signature at TalkGold today is a link to a “program” known as “NewGNI,” which purports to pay “up to 6% weekly.”
"Ken Russo," as "DRdave," brags on the TalkGold Ponzi forum about a purported Zeek payout of $2,164.80 from Rex Venture Group LLC while pitching an emerging HYIP known as "NewGNI."
GNI may be a knockoff scam to the collapsed Gold Nugget Invest HYIP Ponzi, which also used the acronym GNI while purporting to pay a Zeek-like 7.5 percent a week. The government of Belize issued a warning about GNI in November 2009. In December 2009 — after the GNI warning by Belize — the “program” nevertheless was pitched (with three others HYIPs) by a member of the “Surf’s Up” forum, which existed to shill for accused AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin.
Any number of Zeek affiliates, including individuals Zeek has described as “empoyees,” hail from the ranks of ASD’s $110 million Ponzi scheme and various other interconnected fraud schemes. Some Zeek affiliates, for example, also are promoting JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid, which purports to pay 2 percent a day and may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
Zeek promoters also have been associated with a “program” known as OneX, which U.S. federal prosecutors described in April as a “fraudulent scheme” and pyramid cycling money in ASD-like fashion.
In addition to pushing Zeek, ASD, the NewGNI knockoff and a JSS/JBP knockoff known as JSS Tripler 2 that hatched a companion fraud scheme known as Compound150, “Ken Russo” pushed Club Asteria, which purported to provide a Zeek-like payout of between 3 percent and 8 percent a week before promoters came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
Amid these ruinous circumstances that are creating monumentally bizarre PR and legal disasters for the MLM trade, what did certain purported MLM experts do?
Why, boo Mona Vie’s Schroeder, of course — for the apparent high crime of trying to protect his own company and affiliates from these interconnected, international cancers.
Here is hoping that other influential MLM executives and trade groups follow Schroeder’s lead, including the Association of Network Marketing Professionals. Its name is being used to sanitize the Zeek scheme — and if it continues to permit that to happen, it risks a future in the dust bin of irrelevance.
While we’re speaking of hope, here’s hoping that Mona Vie will not shy away from Schroeder’s Zeek comments and actually will join him in the remarks, which he says were made as a concerned individual, not as a Mona Vie executive. Mona Vie should back Schroeder to the hilt.
A ‘Messy Fact’
It’s a “messy fact that periodically a company comes along and sweeps people along into a trail that turns into a trail of devastation,” Schroeder said about Zeek Rewards during a July 16 conference call with Mona Vie distributors.
Schroeder, of course, was alluding to Zeek’s AdSurfDaily-like business model that solicits participants to shell out sums up to $10,000, offers a dubious “product” (or a “product” that is just lipstick on a pig), plants the seed that spectacular returns on the order of 500 percent a year are possible and insists participants who buy into the scheme are neither making an investment nor purchasing a security.
“My own opinion is that that company will come to grief, that it will come to grief in the relatively near future, not farther future,” Schroeder said of Zeek.
If history is any guide — and Schroeder, with considerable justification, suggests that it is — Zeek will encounter a regulatory action that will cause it to crater.
But those words and others — including the use by Schroeder of “pyramid” and “Ponzi” in the context of Zeek — did not sit well with MLM Blogger Troy Dooly. (See PP Blog June 10 editorial.)
Dooly Takes Schroeder To The Woodshed
Dooly wrote Thursday that he “started getting the links and downloads of Randy Schroeder’s call” on July 18, took some time to digest the call and to shoot off a text message to MonaVie founder Dallin Larsen about Dooly’s “concerns” about Schroeder’s remarks.
And then Dooly ventured that Rex Venture Group LLC, the purported parent company of Zeek, just might sue Schroeder and perhaps MonaVie itself. Dooly wrote (italics added):
As the leader of a billion dollar multi-national health and nutrition company in the network marketing community, Schroeder should be very careful what he has to say about any other company. Although he made it clear he was not speaking on behalf of MonaVie, as an officer of the company, he places the company and their distributors in jeopardy if Rex Venture Group LLC were to file some form of civil action.
Good grief. The world is facing the greatest white-collar fraud epidemic in history, much of the money is routed through murky businesses and shell companies with accounts at offshore payment processors such as AlertPay and SolidTrustPay and banks that are asleep at the switch because staying awake is bad for fee revenues, many of the corrupt “programs” use MLM or an MLM-like component — and Troy Dooly, apparently with a straight face, is telling Randy Schroeder that he’d better tread lightly on Paul Burks because Zeek just might sue.
In the same column in which he bizarrely took Schroeder to the woodshed for holding a view about Zeek that is wholly responsible and serves the best interest of the MLM community moving forward, Dooly equally bizarrely extended an olive branch to the subject of his fresh scorn. Indeed, Dooly suggested a bunch of legal messiness could be avoided if Schroeder and Dallin Larsen saddled up Mona Vie’s corporate jet and deposited themselves in North Carolina at Zeek’s next Red Carpet event.
While ensconced in North Carolina as Dooly’s guest, they could hear Zeek boss Paul Burks deliver the good word about the company and could get some extra education from the Zeek “team.”
Dooly wrote (italics added):
I challenge Randy and Dallin to take the corporate jet and travel to N.C. next week as my guests to the Red Carpet Day event. I will introduce you to Paul Burks, and his team and let you better understand their drive and mission for the company.
Dooly did not say whether Burks and Zeek would make their Ponzi-board team available to educate the Mona Vie executives on Zeek’s drive and mission. Nor did he say whether Zeek would make “Ken Russo” available to explain the differences between Zeek and, say, NewGNI or Club Asteria or JSS Tripler 2.
We sincerely hope Schroeder and Larsen decline Dooly’s offer to parachute into North Carolina to break bread with the Zeek pope and the “team.”
Dooly is engaging in pandering of the worst sort. It’s also caustically amateur PR because it raises the specter that an aggrieved Zeek might use legal muscle to silence Schroeder, who, like Larsen, is a prominent figure in MLM circles. Zeek’s Stepfordian cheerleaders will love it, of course, because it gives them a new supply of red meat and raises the prospect that, if Schroeder speaks his mind against Zeek and gets sued, the Bloggers and critics may be next.
History An Appropriate Guide
Intimidation campaigns did not work for AdSurfDaily; they will not work for Zeek, either directly or through proxies. Beyond that, Schroeder has the weight of history on his side: the notoriousness of the ASD Ponzi case, Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea in that case and the guilty plea of Gregory McKnight in the Legisi HYIP Ponzi case. Of course, Schroeder also could point that accused Pathway To Prosperity HYIP operator Nicholas Smirnow is listed as an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. And Schroeder also could point out that Robert Hodgins, an accused international money-launderer for narcotics-traffickers, also has been linked to the HYIP “industry” and also is wanted by INTERPOL.
Just days ago, a federal grand jury returned a 49-count indictment against alleged HYIP purveyor Terrance Osberger, 48, of Genoa, Ohio. In March, a top U.S. Department of Justice official speaking in Mexico City commented on some of the challenges law enforcement is facing in the Internet Age, including bogus libel lawsuits filed to silence critics and protect ventures that engage in organized crime. In May, a top INTERPOL official speaking in Israel said the cost of cybercrime was approaching $1 trillion a year in Europe and that U.S. banks lost $12 billion to cybercrime last year.
Regardless, we have to concede that Zeek/Rex Venture might be stupid enough to try to score points by suing Schroeder and MonaVie. Back in 2008, then-closeted Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of ASD planted the seed that he might just sue “MLM Watchdog” Rod Cook for $40 million. Bowdoin even announced that he’d filled a pot with $750,000 and was going to use it to start suing critics of his 1-percent-a-day “program” back to the Stone Age.
Cook, who is a board member of ANMP and holds the title of chairman emeritus, didn’t blink.
When the Feds noticed the lawsuit threats, they thought them important enough to bring to the attention of a federal judge. They simply called it “GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT 5.”
On Aug. 5, 2008, the U.S. Secret Service raided ASD. What occurred after that from the ASD side left an indelible stain on MLM. Bowdoin compared federal prosecutors and the Secret Service, the agency that guards the life of the President of the United States and has the companion duty of protecting the U.S. financial system from attack, to “Satan.” He further compared the raid to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Over time, the ASD case turned into a symphony of the bizarre. “Sovereign citizens” entered the fray. One of them accused a federal judge of “TREASON.” Another allegedly filed bogus liens against five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service who led the Ponzi investigation.
These episodes were to the utter humiliation of MLMers who value the reputation of the trade. The ruinous PR fallout continues even to this day.
What did Zeek do? Why, it wrapped what effectively is ASD’s 1-percent-a-day compensation model into its payout plan, thus raising the stench of ASD all over again and adding to the stench by effectively paying out an affiliate-reported average of about 1.4 percent a day. Zeek promptly found favor on the Ponzi boards and benefited from promoters of fraud schemes such as ASD and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid (730 percent a year). It also picked up some hucksters from OneX, a “program” in part responsible for the fact ASD’s Bowdoin is now jailed in the District of Columbia.
There can be no doubt that Zeek also attracted promoters of AdViewGlobal (AVG) into its fold. The Feds now have linked Bowdoin to AVG, a 1-percent-a-day “program” that collapsed in 2009 under circumstances both mysterious and bizarre. Before AVG went missing, its braintrust tried to plant the extortive seed that lawyers were going after the critics and that “program” members themselves were at risk of getting sued for sharing negative information. For good measure, AdViewGlobal tried to plant the extortive seed that it would report its own members to their Internet Service Providers if they continued to question the “program” in public.
‘MoneyMakingBrain’ Reemerges In Bid To Chill Critics
Today on the RealScam.com antiscam forum, a notorious cyberstalker and JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid apologist known as “MoneyMakingBrain” is planting the seed that JSS/JBP is going to use its lawyers to come after critics. “MoneyMakingBrain” previously claimed he’d defend Frederick Mann, JSS/JBP’s purported operator, “so help me God.” And then “MoneyMakingBrain” started attacking Lynn Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates, a California nonprofit entity that works proactively with U.S. law enforcement to educate the public about online financial fraud. Edgington is a longtime contributor to the PP Blog and, like the PP Blog, is a member of RealScam.com, a site that concerns itself with international mass-marketing fraud.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: The PP Blog is providing a link to the RealScam.com thread in which “MoneyMakingBrain” has (for months) been engaging in efforts to intimidate JSS/JBP critics. MoneyMakingBrain has a history of emailing threatening communications to the PP Blog. Among other things, he purports to have an ability to track IP addresses and to be keeping a “dossier” on critics. If these things are true, it could mean that “MoneyMakingBrain” will seek to target you in harassment and intimidation campaigns. [** Caution duly advised. RealScam link. Caution duly advised **])
The PP Blog commends Randy Schroeder for his remarks about Zeek. It encourages Mona Vie to back him. Zeek is awash in the stench of ASD, AVG, JSS/JBP, OneX and the serial scammers who populate the Ponzi boards.
Such “programs” put economic security at risk and thus national security.
Period.
Stories Wouldn’t Sell As Fiction
Thank your lucky stars that Zeek’s apologists and Stepfordians are not the fire department. If they were, they wouldn’t be fighting fires. Instead, they’d be standing in the parking lot, deducing the red glow under the roof of the building to which they’d been dispatched was an optical illusion and that the man on the roof with the gas can wasn’t really there. All the acrid, billowing smoke would be ignored in favor of a theory that smoke doesn’t always mean flame.
“No need to bring out the hoses,” they’d say. “This is nothing.”
And when the cops showed up and observed firefighters standing around watching a blaze and ignoring their duty to put it out, they’d be told to mind their own damned business or get busy hiring a lawyer to defend against a defamation lawsuit.
It wouldn’t sell as fiction — and yet somehow passes the plausibility test with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of individuals who call themselves MLMers.
Bravo to Randy Schroeder for advising the members of his trade to open their eyes and choose to see.
On Memorial Day, U.S.-based Zeek Rewards announced it was closing its "old" bank accounts in the United States and opening a new account at a bank it did not name.
UPDATED 8:18 A.M. EDT (MAY 29, U.S.A.) In a curious Memorial Day announcement placed below a representation of the American flag, the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” told affiliates they must cash commission checks “immediately” because Zeek is switching banks.
“Zeek is currently in the process of moving to a bank that can handle our growing needs and while in transition will be closing our old accounts with both New Bridge Bank and BB & T,” Zeek said on its news Blog. “Please be sure to deposit or cash any commission checks immediately so they clear before June 1st, 2012 or they will be returned to you with ‘account closed’ and will need to be reissued.”
Zeek did not identify its new bank. Nor did the purported “opportunity” say why its old banks could not handle its needs and whether its new bank operated on U.S. soil.
Both New Bridge and BB&T are FDIC-member banks operating in North Carolina. Zeek is a purported arm of Rex Venture Group LLC, which conducts business in North Carolina.
Zeek says it conducts business with offshore payment processors such as AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay. Both AlertPay and SolidTrustPay have been criticized for being friendly to dubious businesses if not outright scams such as investment programs operating in disguise, HYIPs, autosurfs and cycler matrices.
Zeek affiliates, meanwhile, have a presence on well-known Ponzi-scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, which has led to questions about whether proceeds from any number of fraud schemes could be passing through Zeek. Today alone Italian authorities announced advertising bans against at least three “programs” that either have or had a presence on the Ponzi boards. The “programs” included JSS Tripler, which purports to pay a daily return of 2 percent; Ricochet Riches, which advertised a daily return of at least 2 percent; and Macro Trade, which advertised a daily payout rate of between 1.2 percent and 2.2 percent. A entity known as “System Explosion” also was referenced today in an investor warning by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
Although Zeek insists it is not an investment program, its reported daily payout rate of between 1 percent and 2 percent is consistent with the returns advertised by numerous online scams.
Two days ago, British journalist Tony Hetherington of the Daily Mail wrote about a purported program known as Royalty 7 that was advertising a daily return of 7 percent. Royalty 7 also has a presence on the Ponzi boards, and a PP Blog reader — “Tony” — reported today that the U.K. Financial Services Authority warned on May 22 that Royalty 7 was an unauthorized firm.
“Finance Your Dream Ltd trading as Royalty7.com is not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) to carry on a regulated activity in the UK,” FSA warned. “Regulated activities include, among other things, accepting deposits by way of business.”
Royalty7 — like Zeek, JSS Tripler and scores of other programs that either plant the seed that outsize returns are possible or outright advertise returns that correspond to annualized returns in the hundreds of percent — advertises that it uses AlertPay and SolidTrustPay as payment processors.
The Zeek Rewards MLM program is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler.
“Win Cash!” Zeekler roars to bidders. “Funds will be sent to the winner by SolidTrust Pay or AlertPay.”
Zeek’s apparent reliance on processors that are the darlings of global fraudsters has resulted in a bizarre condition under which Zeekler effectively is using U.S. currency as an auction “product” no different than a TV set while advertising that successful bidders for sums of cash can receive their winnings through offshore processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme.
Successful Zeekler bidders are told to “please send a note to [Zeekler] customer support requesting SolidTrust Pay or AlertPay” to receive their cash winnings.
Despite Zeek’s claim it is not an investment program, it has been presented as such online by its own affiliates. Affiliates claim they’ve earned gains that correspond to an annualized return of more than 500 percent and that Zeek has a feature that makes “compounding” possible.
BULLETIN: Canada’s province of Quebec has issued a warning on an increasingly bizarre and evolving scheme once known as “GetEasy” and now known as “iGetMania,” calling it an “investment program” that has “not filed a prospectus” and is “not registered with the [Autorité des marchés financiers] in any capacity.”
